Vusi Mahlasela in Session on BBC Radio

Lopa Kothari with tracks from across the globe, and a studio session with South Africa’s Vusi Mahlasela.

Vusi Mahlasela was a leading anti-apartheid voice from within South Africa during the 1980s. He was invited to sing at Nelson Mandela’s inauguration, and he has continued to work as an official ambassador to Mandela’s HIV/AIDS initiative, 46664. Looking back on the 1980s, he has said ‘Somehow you get some sort of courage. You look at what’s happening to your comrades, and you see that their struggle has to be testified-and you don’t have to be afraid.’ He has continued to write songs with powerful social messages, including his hit ‘When you come back’, encouraging exiled South Africans to return, which became a World Cup anthem in 2010. His new album ‘Say Africa’ has just been released in the UK.